Gentry's Journey
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Gentry's Journey
From Church Plays To Prime Time
A single performance inside a women’s jail changed everything. When a character’s confession cracked the room open, Tina Witherby saw how acting can say the words people carry but can’t voice. From that moment on, the craft stopped being a chase for credits and became a practice of presence, courage, and care.
We trace Tina’s path from a tight-knit Alabama community and church recitations to Atlanta’s sets, where “hurry up and wait” is a daily rhythm. She shares how a prayer for change led to a new city, an agency, and the long game of building a career without a perfect plan. On a Tyler Perry set, she learned the discipline of focus as a stand-in—absorbing blocking, lighting marks, and camera shifts—while protecting the inner stillness that keeps a performance honest. We get practical about critique, too: why the best notes sting, how to find the why under every line, and what it means to “go deep” without getting louder.
If you’re navigating auditions, Tina’s toolkit will help. Read the sides as a story before you act them. Define relationships, objectives, and stakes. Bring professional headshots, skip predatory “agency” fees, and treat each audition like a rehearsal that keeps your instrument tuned. Beyond craft, we talk balance—decompression after 7 a.m. call times that end at 11 p.m., breathwork and stretching instead of burnout, and The Artist’s Way habits like morning pages and weekly artist dates to refill the well. Her mantra is simple and liberating: create a beautiful life between roles so the work doesn’t have to carry everything.
You’ll also hear about late blooming, motherhood, and trusting timing in a business obsessed with now. Tina appears in Morality on Prime and Tubi and shares where to follow her work next. Press play for a grounded, faith-forward take on creativity, resilience, and the quiet power of truthful acting. If this story resonates, subscribe, share with a friend who needs to hear it, and leave a review telling us your biggest takeaway.
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Gentry's Journey. I'm your host, Carolyn Coleman, and we have um a guest that I am really anxious to hear her answers. I'm really grateful that she accepted the invitation because I want to know more about her career. And full disclosure, we went to a large um high school. We were we we were in a very large high school. I think we graduated over 400 people in our class, even though we knew each other, we didn't really know each other. So, you know, as you grow up, mature, matriculate through life, you see what other people are doing, and she has come with some great testimonies on this on the times that she was able to come to the class reunion. So uh extended invitation, she prayed about it, she accepted it. So here we are with Miss Tina Weatherby, the acting vegan. So if you will just introduce yourself to the audience. Okay, well too. Well, thank you. Give them a little background about yourself, and then we can um have some questions about your acting and what catapulted you or led you in that direction.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, all right, sounds good. Well, first, Carolyn, thank you uh for inviting me to be a part of your podcast today. I am very excited and very grateful that you would ask. Um, I am Tina Streeter Witherby uh from Bessemer, Alabama. Um actually born at home. Uh my mom had me at home. Okay. Lived in a little town called West Highland, which was on the other side of Pireshop. And there's where I all my family was, uncles, aunts, we lived all basically kind of on the same street. Uh we went to um school together, all the neighborhood kids. So we had a very tight-knit community and um went to uh elementary school, and then eventually when segregation came into play, we ended up leaving our school and then going to um McNeil and Pittman and eventually Herrytown, uh, where we graduated uh in 1975. And uh I moved here in Georgia in 1984, and that was by way of my uh job, my company that I've worked for was Turtles Records and Tapes. And they offered me a store in Atlanta and asked if I wanted to take over that store. And I remember two or three days before that I had prayed. It's kind of like one of those times when you just say, God, I know that there's something more, there's something different. I I don't know. I feel like a change needs to take place. And I prayed on a Wednesday on that Friday. My district manager called me and asked me if I would take that store. And I said, Yes. He said, Did you want to think about it? You want to pray about it? I said, No, I I I know I'm supposed to go. And um, so that's how I ended up uh in Georgia, and this is home now.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, now help me with this. Did we have a turtles in Alabama or in the Birmingham Bessemer Birmingham area?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, we had turtles, they used to be Oz Records. Okay, and there my store was in Midfield. There was a store in Homewood, uh Green Springs, um other places, and eventually what happened, turtles came over and they bought out Oz Records and just converted all those stores into turtles records and tapes.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, I wasn't real big on buying a lot of records back then, but anyway, anyway, it the the name is coming back to me. Oz is definitely I'm familiar with it, so it's nice to have that background information. Yes, yes. So, how or what inspired you to pursue your acting career?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I tell people that going to church, you know, in our small little church in West Highland, Street of Chapel, uh, named after my grandfather. Of course, we had our Easter plays and our Christmas plays, and so we were given recitations. We were giving our little, you know, little parts to get up on stage and you know, present, you know, our you know, whatever the whatever this recitation was about. And I didn't connect at that time, but that was acting. You know, I did I didn't put the two together. So I was only like, you know, seven, eight, nine. And at nine years old, I remember riding down the street on my first new bike in front of my grandfather's house. And I said, I want to be on TV. Now, I had no idea how the people in the box got in the box, you know. I I had true. You know, you thought Ellie May was real Ellie May in real life, and you thought Stanford and Son, you know, you thought these people live the life that we saw on TV. And I remember thinking that's what I wanted to do, but I had I tell people I had no plans, I didn't have a, you know, objective to say, oh, I'm gonna pursue acting and this is how I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. And so from nine until, you know, uh out of high school, I still did performances at church, doing plays and things like that. And I didn't do anything in high school, uh, nothing in college. And it was only when I moved here I started to feel like I wanted to do it, and I still, again, wasn't sure what to do. Got my first professional headshots, uh, and I got with my agency, Halden Talent, uh, which I love them, which I'm still with them today, it's about 30 years, and started the journey there, you know, taking a few classes, um trying to build a resume. And sometimes when you start, you don't have a resume, you know, so you can only put maybe your training, you know, that I've trained with this person, I've trained with this person, and the type of acting that you've taken classes in, that may be all you have to put on your resume. So mine was very small at first because I was just referring to plays and things like that. And um really fell in love with even more when I went to visit a church, and they had a drama ministry. I I didn't know churches had drama ministries, you know. I was like, and I saw the play they did, it was exceptional. Um, I just thought, oh my god, I really want to be a part of this. So I joined that ministry, and we did plays at our church, we did plays at nursing homes and women and children's shelters, we did uh play a play even at the prison, um, a boys' detention center. So it was it was more, you knew it was a calling of sort. Again, I didn't have a plan to say, oh, I'm gonna do this and then I'm gonna get to that, and then I hope I get an academy award. I, you know, I I don't I didn't have those kind of thoughts in my head. And I knew that acting was powerful when we went to the women's jail, and we had to stand outside the room, and then they brought the ladies in to sit down. They told us you can't shake hands, can't hug, can't touch. Okay. As I'm watching these ladies come in the room, I thought I'm so overwhelmed because they they were grandmothers. Some looked like they were 15, some, you know, all ages, all ranges, all different kinds of uh women were there. And it just broke my heart, you know, even though I didn't know why they were there, you know what I mean? Like maybe it's legit, of course, that they're supposed to be there. And we did our first little skit where there is a mother, I'm playing a daughter, another friend's a daughter, another guy we have playing uh the son. We each have a little monologue talking about our story. You know, we came home for Christmas, and mom is saying, you know, well, remember when you did so and so and so? So I get up and tell my testimony, and I'm saying, Oh, I got so in love with this guy, and he had me get in trouble at the bank I worked for, da da da. My friend, who played the other sister, she got up and said, or the mom said, Well, tell them why I always kind of was close to you. And she said, Well, you remember Tony? We said, Yeah, yeah, we know your mama's favorite, you know. And she said, Well, I got pregnant, and I had an abortion, and the room was silent, and one of the young ladies in the orange jumpsuit on the front row said, How many abortions did you have? It's like she thought it was real, she thought we were truly telling our testimonies. And my friend, she just held up three fingers. That young lady started to wail and cry. Somebody in the back started to cry, somebody on the side of the room crying, the lady that invited us to the jail, she was crying. We could barely hold it together, and that's what I knew for me: the power of acting, the power of giving a performance. Because it's like sometimes we're saying words that other people want to say but don't have the courage to say. But when they hear it said out loud, they can relate to it so much so. Now we did that same skit two more times that day. That was the only time that it had that impact. So sometimes we just we went we went with it, you know, where the Holy Spirit was taking up, we said, okay, this is the direction we're going. And but that was a turning point for me to say, okay, I I see the power in doing this.
SPEAKER_00:That is powerful. And for someone to be able to really relate and resonate with really the script. That is very powerful, and it touched her and it touched others as well. Yes, so um the I guess the moral of that story, you never know what someone's going through.
SPEAKER_03:Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. So tell me about your first major acting role.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I guess it all depends on what you call major. That's true. That is subjective. That is subjective.
SPEAKER_02:There are so many, you know, all of them are major to me when I book something like, yay. Isn't that the truth? I do understand that.
SPEAKER_03:So yes. Yes, but that my first acting role on film in a movie, which it never came out, or if it did, I think it came out overseas, was called The Three Muscatels. And at the time, it was Richard Pryor's wife, Flynn Pryor, who was doing this film. So I was in the film, it was during a time when you know kings and queens and princes were, you know, celebrated, and I had one line, and I was so scared I wasn't gonna get any lines because sometimes you're in the film, you don't have any lines. But that was my first time, and I just saw the film probably this year, and we're talking, whoo, we're talking back in '85, '86, something like that. Uh, I never saw it, but a friend who knew Flynn and they knew somebody was able to get some footage, and and the footage was so grainy and discolored, and lighting was terrible because, you know, maybe it was her first film, I don't know, that you could barely see us. Um, but that was, you know, just again to be on set and to start to understand some of what's going on about the importance of you being prepared as an actor, uh, because there's so many things going on around you. There's lighting, there's cameras, there's a director, there are other cast members, somebody's touching up your makeup, somebody's straightening up your clothes. And so you really have to be very focused, uh, onset, or all of that will rattle you. You'll you'll start becoming very self-conscious, like, oh my God, why are they doing that? And oh, did they move the camera because I didn't do something right? And you just have to be centered and focused on being present in the moment and learning how to settle yourself down uh in the midst of all of that. So that was my first time on camera. And then I started to do a few commercials here and there, some industrial films for like uh Children's Healthcare Atlanta, um, Author Writers Foundation, American Heart Association. Uh, again, and each opportunity gives you a chance to get more comfortable with being on set. And so that was, you know, kind of the journey moving forward little by little. And um the first time I had an opportunity to work uh with Tyler Perry, um, I was asked to be a stand-in for Felicia Rashad. And a stand-in is not just like a background person, like somebody sitting at a table, things like that. Even though I've done background work when I first started, I was in a tent, it was muddy, it was cold, it was raining, we was out there seemed like 20 hours. I don't know. Um, but I was asked to be the stand-in for her because they need to reshoot some things. That was a great experience because you didn't have to know the lines, but you had to observe what the what they call the 18, the main character was it was um Alicia Rashad, Beverly Johnson, Gabrielle Union, and I can't remember the other lady's name. Well, they all had stand-ins. So we were the stand-in. We would watch them do the scene, and then they would leave and go back and finish getting dressed, then we would stand in place, and sometimes they would give us a script and we would read the line. They were trying to get the lighting right, you know, to be sure that the marks were the good places, cameras were in a good spot. And my first day on set there, uh, a young lady standing next to me, she would stand in, I think for Gabrielle Union. She said, she had her teeth clenched, and she said, He's looking at you. And I said, What? What did you say? He's looking at you. I said, Who's looking at me? She says, Tyler Ferry. I said, I didn't even know he was in the room. It was probably 50 people in there. So I said, Where I see, she said, he's over there. So I looked over there and I he was just staring at me. And I said, Hi, how are you doing? He said, I'm good. How are you? I said, I'm fine. And then I heard him say something, but he was talking to the person next to him. He said, Man, she looks just like mine. And I never knew what he said. But I found out because we filmed several days, several different different locations, that an extra came up to me and said, I think I'm gonna hang out with you guys. You all are getting special treatment. And it wasn't that, but we had to be ready to step in on camera immediately. Like we couldn't be lagging around somewhere. And she said, Oh yeah, because you're Tyler Perry's aunt. And I just laughed. I said, Really? So that's what he said, that I looked like his aunt, which which aunt that is, I don't know. Um, but one of the days while filming with him, we were the stand in the stand-ins. Um Charles McCoy was standing in for Tyler Perry, and Brandon uh was standing in for Brian White. We were at a table at a restaurant, and they would say, Second team, step out. And that just meant, okay, we need to move. I went to get up and somebody put their hand on my shoulder and said, You stay. And I looked up and it was Tyler Perry. I was like, oh, okay, uh, okay. Uh so he sat at the table right across from me, and he was so focused. I tell people it's one of the best acting classes I've ever had to see him a thousand percent focused. And I finally broke, built up the nerve to say, I said, You look very nice today. And he looked up, he says, Thank you. And he went right back into focus. And that taught me again the lesson about don't get distracted by all the things that are going on around you, or you're gonna miss your mark. And such is life. As we see things happening over here and happening over there, it's very easy to get off track and not stay in your lane, uh, like a horse in a race, put blinders on so that you can focus on where you're going. It doesn't mean you can't help people along the way, but sometimes our overgiving will put us in a place to where we end up being depleted and we really don't have the energy, you know, to really continue doing what you know, what we believe God has called us to do.
SPEAKER_00:All of that was so interesting. You have really opened up the stage for me to sit there and watch what was going on, things I truly never would know what's going on, even though I've been in, like you say, small plays here, there, and everywhere. I've never thought about it as acting. Um but for I use that term a lot. I'm like um, I put blinders on to keep me from being swayed to the right or to the left when I'm focused on a project, a paper, whatever it is, you have to basically be in a headspace where you need no distractions, or you will miss the mark, or you will make an error, and then it'll cost you, let's say, two or three hours work that you've got to redo. And I'm talking about when I was uh writing papers when I was working on my masters, and so I was like, I don't need this type of distraction, let me get up and go. And the library is not the place for me to be. I just need to find somewhere uh where there is little to no noise and a little bit of hum of a music in the background to keep me, as I say, uh laser focused and with my blinders on. Because once you get distracted, it is hard to get back on track. Yes, yes. So you find that to happen um in your acting career. Once you break that, is it hard to get back?
SPEAKER_03:Uh definitely, because life is happening. You know, life beh life as they say, yes. Um, you know, having my kids uh much later in life or one, I really wanted to make sure I was being the nurturing, the mother, the being there, so I wasn't kind of full-time pursuing acting. Every now and then something would come up. But when I started to get back in it, you know, I had to learn to relinquish some of that and say, oh, y'all know how to drive, you can go yourself, or you know how to cook, or you know how to wash clothes, or you know, I had to had to let some of that go. Um, and that's when I started to get back focused and got in a class with my dear friend Michael Cole, and was even more inspired, but found that it's not as easy as you kind of think it is. You excuse me, you think you know what you're doing. But when you get in a class, then there's somebody to critique what you're doing, how you're saying it, and most importantly, why you're saying the line. That's one of the reasons it can help you to learn lines if you understand the scene and why you're saying the line.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that that brings me to my next point. You can just say, Oh, I'm going to the store, but then no, that's fine.
SPEAKER_00:Go ahead and continue that, please.
SPEAKER_03:So that's that's part of understanding, which I didn't I didn't have a full understanding of that until I started taking classes. That the air, the line can't just fall out of the air and come out of you. It has to be coming from a place of why are you saying that line? What does it mean to the other person? You know, am I saying I'm going to the store? And it sounds different if you know why you're saying that to the person. You may be saying, I'm going to the store because you won't want to get away from them. You know, like I'm sick of your little, I'm going to the store. You know, as opposed to, hey, I'm going to the store. Do you need anything? You know, there's a difference in how you'll say the line if you know why you're saying the line.
SPEAKER_00:So it's it's it's a work, it's work. It is definitely work. And that leads into my next question. How do you handle the criticism and different feedback regarding your performances?
SPEAKER_03:Well, again, you have to learn that if you take too personal, then you let all of that start to back up in you, and you can't be ready for the next opportunity or for the next class. Now, when I um start taking the classes from Michael, or you know, he's like, Oh, no, I don't know, Tina. That was I don't know what I don't know what you were doing. And you go like, and so you're dreading coming to class the next week. You think, oh my God, he's gonna get me again. But he would remind us, he said, I'm doing the class so that you will know what to do when you're on set.
SPEAKER_00:It makes sense, it makes sense. You've got to receive the criticism, you've got to be ready to receive it. Um, because you won't know what to improve on. And when I hear people say, Well, I'm a perfectionist, well, well, maybe you are, but are you also it's got to be your way or the highway? There is a difference between being a perfectionist or just having your way. Um, those two things vary very differently, in my humble opinion, and not just with acting, but with life. Okay, just because you you you feel as though you're good at it, someone comes along and says, Oh, um, I just use myself when I'm when I'm writing, and someone wants to read my draft, and they're saying, Well, I see where you didn't do this, you didn't do that. I said, remember, it's a rough draft. That's what we're saying in my head. Remember, it's a rough draft, you know. So that's all over here. I haven't put that in yet, you know. But you I hey the criticism is needed because even the professor wants you to put out your best work. So just like your your instructor wants you to put out that best work. Um, I've heard people say, I don't have to be here, I could be somewhere soaking up the sun, you know. So they want to see that you are serious about what you're doing and not basically kind of wasting their time, so to speak. Is that what you get? Um, when you're acting or what you've seen in your acting career.
SPEAKER_03:Well, exactly. I I know that my teacher was coming from a place of there's better in you. You maybe don't know it yet. Sure. And and I love what you I love what you said earlier about being uh perfectionist, and people think that's you know, that's great, but sometimes it means that you are just controlling, you want to control everything. Like you say, it's gotta be your way, my way. And when you're trying to learn something, you have to be willing to step back, not take it personal, still try and come back and give your best. Uh, don't assume the teacher don't like you because they're telling you this, that, or the other, and make adjustments. That's just like somebody playing basketball, somebody playing tennis, somebody, you know, learning how to do any kind of sport or playing an instrument. I remember my daughter first started. Uh she went to a school where everyone had to learn to play an instrument, and they gave them those little recorder things, like a flute type thing. But it was like, yes, I remember those.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I remember those.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my god, when she got in the car, um I thought, oh my god, we gotta ride home and hear this, squish, squish, I was like, Jesus.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my god. So I'm just thinking, it's gotta get better than this. And eventually it did.
SPEAKER_03:You know, she was reading music, she knew it takes time.
SPEAKER_00:It takes time.
SPEAKER_03:And she ended up, you know, they gave her an instrument, they gave her a viola, which is my real name, even though it's spelled differently than the musical viola. Uh, it made me love my name more. I used to not like my name Viola. But once she started to play it, and you know, she's been first chair, you know, through high school, through college. Um, and I and I learned that, you know, again, you have to look at where you're starting. Nobody starts as a professional at the top. They they start where you're about to start, learning the basics and trying to take the information, digest it, and then be able to present it a little bit better this time. And it still doesn't mean you get it all right. You know, my last film that I worked on, I had worked with this gentleman on two other projects, and this time he said, No, this time I want you to go deep. And so you have to have in your head what deep means. Deep doesn't mean harder or stronger or louder. He meant internally. Sure. I need you to go deep in what this person is saying to you so that when it shows up on film, without you saying a word, people will feel your pain. So those are some of the things that you learn and you try to hold on to, and you practice, and you know, you have so many auditions, audition, audition, audition, audition, audition. And you may not think for a year, 15 months. But because you love it, or I love it, I'm willing to keep doing that because the auditions are rehearsals, and it also says that the casting director that keeps calling you in likes what he sees or she sees.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:And it may mean that role, the the producers had somebody else in mind. Maybe they were shorter, maybe they were taller, maybe they were black, maybe they were white. It could be a number of reasons that you didn't quite fit into that character spot as well as somebody else did. So that's when you have to put the, you know, tubbing up your skin and not take it personal and not feel like, oh man, I never book anything. You just audition and you send it on. You do your self-tape at home and you send it off, you know, through Actors Access, and they they automatically send it on to the casting director. And there are more than one, but there's more than one person making that decision. Not just the casting director, but the producers and the uh the director of the film, and all those people have to say yes to you being uh in that role.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, yep, yep.
SPEAKER_00:So now um I was looking, you know, sometimes Saturdays can be lazy days, and it's a rarity for me. So I was watching Steel Magnobies. I didn't catch it from the beginning. Um, and I caught it right when at the end of the funeral where Sally Fields was speaking, and I text my daughter because she and I saw that in the movies, the theaters together years ago. And I think I even put a post. I said, I still cry at the same point and still magnolious to this day. And I said, you know, it's just there. I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I'm like, so when you say it go deep, that brought that to mind for me. Okay. So I was like, wow, you know, so I mean, you're really pulling this together for me. All dreamed of being an entertainer, an actress, an actor being on television. I think, you know, that's just the height, that's just people, you know. But when you when I really think, I'm like, could I really do this?
SPEAKER_01:Could I really do this?
SPEAKER_00:But if it's in your heart and if it's part of, you know, what you want to do, sure, you can do all things, you know, especially through Christ who strengthens you. And if you feel like it's a calling, you definitely can. You know, you just have to be ready. You have to take yourself out of the mix and put that that um that actress and actor, if you will, in that spot. Take yourself out of it because it's not about you, it's about the character that you are that you're playing because you want it to resonate with the audience. Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, very much so. And like I I tell people, you know, some people think, well, oh, right, you should be you should be doing this, and you should be at this stage in your career and that stage. And everybody's gonna be at a different stage for thousands, hundreds of thousands of actors that are working that you don't know their name, but they work full-time. That's what they do. You may not see them in all the big time movies and things like that. And I tell the first thing people ask me, Oh, why don't you work with Tyler Perry? Why don't you get him onto one of his movies? And I go, that would be great. And I do audition for films that he uh is uh producing, and so far I haven't booked anything and I'm okay with that. You know, I tell people, while if you're gonna pursue this career, this industry, um, or whatever you may be pursuing, may not be acting, go ahead in the meanwhile, create the most beautiful life that you can create. Because that's at the end of the day, when you when they say cut, that's a wrap, and you drive home, and where are you coming home to and who's at home, and what's your life like outside of that? You gotta have something more going on. So, to me, I've been working on myself all these years. You know, I've been trying to figure out why I did this, why how did I why not fall this way? Why did I go that way? And give myself grace uh because you don't know what you don't know. Uh, but when you start reading books, I love to read because sometimes the book will, again, say what I feel, but I don't know that's really me until I read it and say, oh, oh, that that's oh, okay, I see, I see, I see. And so grow where you plan it, where wherever your life is, and nobody has a perfect life, nobody has it all together. Uh, you're gonna have some ups, some downs. You're either going through a storm, you're in a storm, or you're coming out of a storm. And that's that's called life. And, you know, prayerfully, you know, I think God help you maintain balance in your life so that nothing becomes so important that if you don't get that role, and if you don't work with that producer or that director, you know, you're not devastated, you're not crushed by that. You're saying, I love what I do, and whether I ever get to work with this famous person or that famous person, I love it enough to do it anyway. That's not gonna deter me from doing it.
SPEAKER_00:And I think that is the um object, for lack of a better term, the game. You have got to love what you do, uh, you know, no matter what it is. Um, just to name some things, um, you know, to be a politician, you have got to love it because I look at the ups and downs and uh all arounds, and I'm like, ooh, Lord. But it, you know, every every industry has that. There's not going to be one where you don't have to make tough decisions, where you're just saying, Look, I need to move on, I know I can find better, or this is not for me. Um, so yes, we all have to look at that in whatever industry we are in. I've worked with some physicians who have told me they hated being a doctor in your life. You know, I told them, I'm glad you told me. I won't be coming to see you. You know, and then I say that to myself, I'm like, man. You know, but there I know, my goodness. I mean, you would think you would hear that, right? You would think you would hear that, you know, because you put in not you put in time, money, resources, you put in a good bit of your life to get to the door to say, hey, I am a physician. Um but when like you talk about mouth open. I'm like, we we know who not to book for this surgery, but that did not mean that they weren't skilled. Okay, it does not mean that they weren't skilled to be there and they did not have the knowledge base to be there, they would just rather be somewhere else. Yes, and so uh, you know, so I you know, I drive home thinking about it and I laugh, you know, but I'm like, wow, we are we are more alike than we are different. Yes, and people need to realize that, they need to recognize that because you think of that as being the pinnacle. I hate my job, I hate this. If one more person calls on me, you're like, ooh, okay, all right, you know, moving on. Yes, so everything is not for everybody, but that does not mean they they can't do it and that they can't that they don't do it well, they do it well, but you can best believe you're not gonna get an if I'm off, I'm off. They can call somebody else, uh-uh. I'm gonna put it back, you know, as opposed to that person who's committed to the bit and say, Okay, I'll be right up. So you know, all of that comes into play. Yes, now, Miss Tina, if you could play any um character in who would it be? And why? Whether it be history, lit, something that you've seen commercially, who would it be who inspires you in that way?
SPEAKER_03:Oh wow, so many, yes, I believe so many women do, and I love Halle Berry. When I see her in a serious role, she's there 100%.
SPEAKER_00:It shows.
SPEAKER_03:Uh it shows, it shows. And um, oh, her name, I'm going a blank now. Uh Angela Bassett.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Um, you know, these are these are women that I would love to, you know, be be in a movie with them, you know, to be able to share the screen with that kind of talent, the gift that's inside of them that is uh even even I heard Carrie Washington say, I don't have to, I don't do this for a paycheck. Now she gets paid well, I'm sure. I'm sure she said, I would do it if I didn't get anything. It's in me. I have to do this. And so those kind of things inspire me to say, and I what I love about acting is you don't have to be 20. You could be 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90. You know, that's yeah, that's what makes it even more fascinating that I don't have to feel like, oh wow, well, you know, you're 68 now. I don't know if you got I I'm not even worried about that because one thing I found out is that the best things have happened to me later in my life. I was I was one month short of 40 when I had my first daughter. I came to the 20-year class reunion and in here in town, and I was pregnant with my second daughter. Oh. I was six months pregnant when I came. So I had Angela at 43. And I realized, I used to, you know, I used to say, Oh, I had them late in life. And I met a young lady who makes it was a problem. She said, Don't ever say you had your kids late in life. You were supposed to have them. They were only supposed to exist on earth at this given time. You couldn't have had them 10 years ago or 15 years ago. Their walk is lining up with what God has destined for them, and they had to be born now at this particular time. And so that's how I feel about my acting. It's like, you know, the best is yet to come. I just have that mindset that it's it's just my daughter and I say all the time, does it get any better than this? And we say, Yes, yes, it does.
SPEAKER_00:It does, it does.
SPEAKER_03:We just we just agree that it does get better, and we expect it to get better. We look for it to get better, we believe it's going to get better, so that we don't get caught up in, oh, I didn't book that or oh, that didn't happen, or I didn't get that opportunity. Whatever is for you, it's for you. And trusting God in the process of it, like people say, Well, did you have a plan? I didn't have no plan. Life was just kind of dragging me along as I went. So I didn't have a plan, but thank God when God says in his word, for I know the plans I have for you, said the Lord. They are plans for good and not evil, plans to give you a future and a hope. And knowing that he's working out the plan better than I ever could, that gives me peace. That gives me peace.
SPEAKER_00:That's a blessing. Yeah, because think about think about it like this. And I've I I've had those thoughts as well. If I had been 20 with some of this knowledge, it would not have come too fresh. Okay, because you think you have, you think you have all uh, let's just put it out there. You think you have all the senses, you think you got it going on, you know, but you are really just starting. Yes, you're not too many years from high school, and I mean high school with your classmates that you have been knowing a good part of your life, yes, you know, and when I saw, I don't know what gave me, and God gave me the revelation of growing and growing up, maturing versus staying stagnant. You still have to move and go. Nursing was never on my mind. Let's put it out there. It was never on my mind, and I say this often. Uh I had thought about becoming um, you know, going to law school. Wow. Then I thought about OT. And the reason I didn't go to law school, I'll put it out there. I did my research. Hard for them to find a job. I don't want a career where I can't work. And then years later, I was in the courtroom. Um, and these people were lined up against the wall. They were all attorneys looking to catch some cases of people who did not have lawyers. What? So that just confirmed to me what I I I read 10 years back, okay? And so I mean, it didn't matter where you went to law school, let's be clear. And I'm not knocking it. I, you know, sometimes I I still dabble, or I did dabble for a long time. There's nothing you can do these days that doesn't have something with a legal aspect to it, you know, ethics, um, legalities. We all need to be on our toes about that. But yeah, there are a lot of starving, you know, um, when I first really understood the term starving artist, um, a friend of mine, um, she was like, Oh, yeah, K, you need to go to a starving artist sale. And I was like, uh for what? She said, That's where you get your best work because a lot of times artists don't make the money that they put into their work, and you know, it's really inexpensive to go and purchase. I'm like, I have enough stuff on my wall. I mean, you know, but I understood what she was saying. Yes. So I say that to say there are a lot of starving attorneys out here, okay? Um, but there, but it's it's sort of like a sisterhood and a brotherhood. They're going to give each other a case or something from someone who has grown a little bit, you know, but it still has to be a partnership to a degree. You have to know someone, and um, that's not a bad thing. That's definitely not a bad thing, you know. But um, don't be like that physician. The few physicians who told me I hate this, what I'm doing, and you're like, but I'm just saying, as you matriculate through life, you find your way. Yes, yeah, yeah, I said all that to say that you find your way, you know. But no, I didn't see myself truly entering an industry where it was oversaturated with people who can't um who can't find a job because everybody wants to be that that attorney that just you know gets that um, you know, that multi-million dollar lawsuit, you know, that's few and far between. But yes, I'm not saying don't dream for it, and I'm not saying don't reach for it because hey, what God has for you, he has for you. That's right, yes, yes. So, so hey, that's where we stand on that. Now, how a busy day on the set. How do you unwind at the end of your day?
SPEAKER_03:If it's a long day, it's it's challenging. I I remember doing one shoot for a show that was on VET. I don't think I ever saw the show, but it was running for a little while called Bigger. And I got to set at seven o'clock in the morning, and did not film my scene until 11 o'clock that night. So it was what we call hurry up and wait. Like get ready, get dressed, get prepared, and then go sit in your trailer and wait. And then we move in locations, okay. Then you're gonna sit over there and wait. And even though I wasn't, I was only on set during my scene for probably 45 minutes, an hour, when I got was driving home, I was so wired up. Just because you, you know, once I pay stay up past my bedtime, another clock turns on. So I agreed, agreed. So it's hard to, you know, bring yourself back down. So sometimes when I come home, you know, I may get a shower, get the makeup off, just relax, and try not to run the whole day through my my mind again because that will wear me out. You know, think about, oh, I was there, oh, I should have been there. Why didn't they call me for that? And oh, yeah, I saw them. You know, I don't want to do that so much. I want to be grateful for the day, grateful for the opportunity. Um, and so it just depends. You know, if I have a long day, it's very hard to come home and just unwind. Like I don't I don't drink wine or anything like that on occasion, maybe New Year's Eve or something. Um, and just again learning books about how to uh decompress, you know, how to do breathing exercises, uh, how to do yoga, how to do stretching exercises. Uh, because your your mind and your body need to be working in um coordination. They need to be working together. You feel that it's not going that way, it means something is out of balance. Either you are not sleeping well, you're you're not getting enough sleep, you're not drinking enough water, you're not eating well, you're not praying, you're not in the word, whatever it is, that's really where success lies. It's being able to be consistent and be balanced in your life the best you can. I mean, you know, sometimes things require more of your time than something else, but when you start to feel yourself unraveling, you've got to know yourself well enough to say, okay, this is what I remember reading this book saying, okay, you're out of balance, you know, you're not getting enough sleep, or you're not giving yourself, you know, that um self-care time. Uh, there's a book that I read some years ago, and I'm reading again. And my daughter, she asked me about the book, so I gave it to her. She was reading it, she says, Oh, the breeding. She's oh, I gotta order my own book. I gotta order my own book. Okay, that's good. And it's called the artist way, and it helps people get unblocked. Say if you're a writer, if you're an actor, if you're a photographer, if you're a stay-home mom, because all of us have creativity inside of us. We were made by a creative God. If we look around at the earth and all the people and differences and all beautiful things, that means that creativity is in each one of us. And so the book helps you get kind of unload some of the things that have gotten you kind of, you know, pulled away from the very thing that you know is your most creative gift. One of the things you do is do what's called morning pages. And you write three pages every morning. And it doesn't have to make no sense, it don't have to be like, oh, well, I went to the park and I went to the store. It could be whatever thoughts come to mind and something for me and journaling for years because it helps me get this stuff out of my body if I write it out on paper. I'm not carrying all the thoughts and all the troubles and all the worries, all the disappointments. So that's one of the things the book talks about is doing the morning pages. And Brittany is just loving those. She's like, I can't talk, Mom, gotta go do my morning pages. So I thought, okay. Okay. Um, but one of the other things that I love, and I haven't gotten back into it since I just picked the book back up. It's called the artist date. And this is where whatever your, you know, love is, whatever your craft is, you go and do that thing once a week. Now, for me, when I first read it, I would go to the movies every Tuesday during the day. And of course, nobody was in the theater but me in the middle of the day. I'd have my little popcorn and soda and just watch this movie. And it was so stirring in my soul. I was just that, that's oh, that's what I want to do, that's what I want to do. So she talks about the little the little child inside of us is longing to play. You know, we get serious, we get our jobs, we become moms and dads, and we gotta work hard, we gotta pay bills, we gotta mortgage. We forget that God has put uh a big dream inside of all of us. And sometimes you have to pull back instead of giving every ounce of yourself away in order for you to do what you're doing. You had to make some adjustment to say, okay, I'm doing this podcast. Okay, y'all gonna have to wait.
SPEAKER_00:You know, that is true, that is true. Yeah, you have to prioritize. Um, yeah, and sometimes you you need to know when to step away, yes, so that you can breathe. Yes, yes, so because when it's no longer fun, it's like a chore, it's a drudgery, and you don't want that.
SPEAKER_03:No, no, because then you you you're you it's like you're it's like you're pushing the dream away instead of pulling it towards you. I agree, I agree. If you're so agitated by having to do it, and I mean I mean I went through a period where I had so many things going on in my life, so many negative things happening, I was afraid to love acting because I said it's not gonna love me back. You know, I think I'll just I'll just sit home and you know, read and you know, retire. And but I knew that that part of me is the most vibrant part of me, it's the most exciting part of my life, other than my kids and my family, is to be able to use my gift that God has given me. I don't want to get to the end of my life and look back and see it could have been better.
SPEAKER_00:I am that way as well. I don't want to have any regrets, right? And we're gonna have some, don't get me wrong. Sure, sure. At least I know that I tried, yeah, everything that God put in my wheelhouse to do. Okay, does that make sense? That makes sense, yes. Yeah, I don't uh you know the wouldas, the coudas, the shoulders. You don't want to live with that, right? Right.
SPEAKER_03:That's true. That's true.
SPEAKER_00:Now, do you have any tips for anyone who is considering uh becoming uh an actress, an entertainer? Um because you have you have told us a good little bit, other than patience, you know, they're gonna have to bring a glass of patience with them wherever they go. Um but that's basically in a lot of things. But when you told me about that day you got there at seven and they didn't call you until 11 at night, I'm like, for real? You know, but hey, if it's your love, you got to do it. If it's your job, you have to do it.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, yes, and that's they hire you to be there when they call you. They've already hired you, they've already given you the job. And so part of what you're also saying is I'm not really doing anything. It's I always bring a good book. I bring my little blanky, and I I just sit back and I chill because if I start saying, Well, why are they called my scene? Why are they not doing my scene here? What's taking so long? You're in the wrong business, don't do it.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_03:It is a lot of hurry up and wait, and trying to keep yourself in a mindset that I want to be still as uh alert and awake and fully into the scene and not be griping because it's so late now, it's 11 o'clock, I've been here since 7 o'clock. Nobody wants to hear that.
SPEAKER_00:No, no.
SPEAKER_03:They're paying not only you, but all these other people, all the other, all the other crew that's probably been there since 5 o'clock or 4:30 that morning. Sure. They're still there and they're working through because at the end of the day, they know it's gonna take some time to get the process going and working, and sure there's gonna be some hiccups here and there. But anybody that's trying to get into it, um, you know, I would just do simple things like doing plays at a at a local theater, getting some acting classes so you get the foundation uh down and start participating in your community theater. And you may be able to, you know, depending on where you live, somebody's doing some filming. Um it's important to have an agent. I'm not saying it's the only way to get the acting opportunities, but the agent, uh, well, my agency is reading the contracts. They're making sure that if they say they're gonna pay you this, and they're gonna then they're gonna pay you this because that's what's in the contract, then you want an agency to represent you. And they're the ones, most of the time, that send me an audition, like they just sent one uh yesterday for a um for an episodic that's already being filmed. I think it's in season two. And so they what happens is the client or the producers, the people who are making the movie, say, okay, this movie's gonna be about three black women. So they may reach out to different agencies in Atlanta, this is where they're gonna film at, and say, Hey, can you send us your top five actors? And this company sent us five actors, and then sometimes it's a huge pool of people. I remember getting a role in a commercial, it was 300 other people are listening for that. I thought, my God. So again, you have to know that if it's for you, you know, it's for you. And you know, getting those roles, you're even more grateful because you know there were 299 other people who didn't book the role.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:So, but finding an agency, and you shouldn't be paying anybody to be a part of their agency. Like if you go to an agent, they say, okay, well, yeah, well, we'll represent you, but you know, we're gonna need like$500 so we can get you into this and this. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, I I shouldn't you get paid when I get paid. That's what that's how that's supposed to be. Good advice, good advice, good advice. Yeah. If I get an acting job and you help me get it, well, you're gonna get a percentage of that, but I shouldn't have to pay you till you represent me and you've gotten me no work. That so people have to be careful about that. Um, don't go out spending no$500 on no headshots. You you can find somebody that can do find the person and you can see their work online and what have you. Um, and you don't necessarily go buy yourself if you don't know this person or what have you. And you get to some nice headshots for you know, maybe$200, uh, because that is your calling card. That's what you're gonna have posted on a site called Actors Access. And that is where clients go and can say, okay, Tina, with a okay, well, look, reach out to her agency and have her audition for this role. Now, again, it may be 15 other women. My age range, you know, sometimes it's black, sometimes it's white, sometimes it's span, sometimes they don't really care what you are. And um then I'll get the information like I got an audition uh yesterday, and I start by reading the information, read the email twice. Don't read it once, gotta read it twice because they may tell you one specific thing to do. You didn't do that thing. And like most of the casting directors here in Atlanta, I know them to some degree because I've been doing it for quite some time. But then I try and get the inform the script and I read it as an audience member. I don't read it like I'm trying to portray it. I just read it as if I was sitting in the audience and I'm reading this story about this character, and this is what they said, and oh, they laughed there. So I get a visual in my head of what the scene may look like. Then I will go back and start to say who else is in the scene with me. Now, if there's three people in the scene, but I only have conversation with one, it doesn't mean I don't acknowledge those other people at some point in the scene. I have to make sure it's inclusive. Everything that's going on in the scene, I'm aware of it. You know, the girl brings me coffee. Maybe I just take the coffee and I nod my head to no, I don't say the mail, I just nod my head to say thank you. Uh, those little things, your eye line is very important. And then you start to work on why you're saying this and what's the story in this, what's what's the you don't have a lot to work with because you may only have you know five lines in a scene, but you have to keep reading them and reading the other characters' lines to see what how they're connecting. What's this relationship between these two people? Are they friends? Are they sisters, mother, daughter, you know, they strangers? Uh, all of those things make a difference in how you present uh your your character and your audition.
SPEAKER_00:So it's it's it's work, it's work, but that is life. I mean, we have to work for what we desire. That's true, yeah. And you want to be the best at what you do. That's right. That's you don't want to be mediocre. Who wants to be Miss Mediocre? I mean, Mr. and Mrs. Mediocre. You know, yeah, you you want to have a reputation for getting it done, you know, and getting it, getting the job done, and per having a quality product is what I like to tell people. You know, if you're not gonna put out a quality product, then you know, don't put out anything. Um let's just do that. Well, um, now do you have one last question? Do you have anything you're working on now that you can speak on? You can say yes, but I can't speak on it. That matter, you know, however, because I we don't want to divulge any secrets here, okay?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Well, I just finished uh a film. I don't I don't have I have one line in it, but you don't see me saying the line. Can't speak on the whole project, but just did that this weekend. Um not sure their time frame as far as being able to get it, you know, put together. And I think it's more a pilot, but still they're gonna want to show it. The last thing I just did when I had a premiere a couple of weeks ago was morality. And the director, DeJor Ashwood, had he rents a theater so we can see ourselves on the big screen. And we do a red carpet, we get to invite our friends and family uh to see, you know, our work. And so we are just we just finished season two and in the process of getting it. Uh season one is already on Prime and Tubi. And so now he's working to get the second season two uh on Prime, to be Samsung, some others that he's working on. And hopefully we're believing season three is coming. Well, that's great. That is great. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_00:And how can the audience find you or follow you uh and follow your work or all right?
SPEAKER_03:Well, on Facebook is just Tina Witherby. Um, and on Instagram is the acting vegan. Uh is one of my pages on IG, and the other one is just Tina Witherby.
SPEAKER_00:Well, thank you so much. I do appreciate it. Learned a lot. I learned a lot. That's what this is about, you know. Um learning, diving into someone else's profession and gaining some knowledge.
SPEAKER_03:Awesome. Very much. I'm very grateful to have had the opportunity and you know, hope I've shared some light and some inspiration. And whether it's in acting or whatever thing you're going after, you know, another book I'll mention called The Dream Gipper by Bruce Wilkinson is a great little parable about knowing that there's something else you're supposed to do, but you're gonna have opposition, but you can't let the opposition stop you from going. You gotta just go on anyway.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. If you give up, yeah, you'll never know what you can accomplish. Yes. It's really for you to do, you you have to. There are gonna be bumps and bruises along the way. Nothing is going to be selling just free. Um, so yes, that that's good. That is good. Well, thank you, my audience, gentry's journey. Thank you. You have a wonderful weekend, and we will speak again, okay? All right, thank you so much, Carol.
SPEAKER_03:You have a wonderful evening.